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MBBALL Eastern coaching search

G

Griz til I die

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Sounds like an interesting field of candidates. Dan Monson would be quite the hire!

As for Riley’s replacement as Eastern’s head coach, some names with local connections remain available, though the extent to which they have been in discussions with the Eagles is uncertain.

Dan Monson, 62, was fired last month as Long Beach State’s head coach after 17 years in the position. Monson, who coached at Gonzaga from 1988 to 1999 first as an assistant and then as head coach, is also a Moscow High School graduate. He has an overall head coaching record of 445-396 and is a generation older than the 35-year-old Riley.

Will Conroy, 41, was not retained by new head coach Danny Sprinkle on the University of Washington staff and has acknowledged being interested in the EWU job on social media. Conroy was the Huskies’ associate head coach last season and played for Washington from 2001 to 2005.

Rachi Wortham, Tacoma Community College’s head coach, played at Eastern from 2003 to 2005 and later was an assistant for the Eagles from 2007 to 2011. He also was on the basketball staff at Oregon State and Montana.

Ryan Looney, 48, grew up in Spokane and has been Idaho State’s head coach since 2019, but his candidacy seems less likely after the announcement that Dylan Darling, a Central Valley High School graduate and former WSU player, is transferring to play for the Bengals.
 
Crazy to think that a program like EWU managed to get a coach who went to the NCAAs the previous year.

What's great is that Monson could be compelled to stick around if he is successful.
 
So I see why Eastern fans are excited about this hire. I’m gonna look at this objectively for a minute after sleeping on it last night.

Let’s start with the pros of this hire:
1. He’s from Spokane and has strong ties to the area
2. He’s a very experienced coach. At age 62, this will be the 4th program he will have been the head coach of (Gonzaga, Minnesota, LBSU, EWU).
3. There’s currently 4 LBSU players who contributed significantly in the portal right now. Perhaps they can find their way up to Cheney
4. The Spokane area is home and he won’t be looking to move up ASAP like the last 3 guys. This will be his last job

Cons
1. Monson is 62. How many years will he actually be good for? 3-4?
2. Pretty mixed results at LBSU. He was pretty good in his early years with the Beach, but outside of their miracle tournament run, they haven’t done anything in recent years, including going into the Big West tournament this year which prompted the AD to want to make a change.
3. It took the AD letting Monson go in the middle of the season to inspire the team to play well. Prior to that decision, the Beach didn’t have much going for themselves. Good on them for using this as motivation and turning their season around, but if the AD would’ve waited until the end of the season, what would’ve the rest of their season look like?
4. While Monson does have strong ties to the Spokane valley, what does he actually know about Eastern and the Big Sky? Anything? I think there could be a learning curve.

Overall, I do think this is a good hire for Eastern and probably a best case scenario for roster building and for their budget concerns. Spokane is home for Monson, but his recent success has definitely been a mixed bag
 
Griz til I die said:
So I see why Eastern fans are excited about this hire. I’m gonna look at this objectively for a minute after sleeping on it last night.

Let’s start with the pros of this hire:
1. He’s from Spokane and has strong ties to the area
2. He’s a very experienced coach. At age 62, this will be the 4th program he will have been the head coach of (Gonzaga, Minnesota, LBSU, EWU).
3. There’s currently 4 LBSU players who contributed significantly in the portal right now. Perhaps they can find their way up to Cheney
4. The Spokane area is home and he won’t be looking to move up ASAP like the last 3 guys. This will be his last job

Cons
1. Monson is 62. How many years will he actually be good for? 3-4?
2. Pretty mixed results at LBSU. He was pretty good in his early years with the Beach, but outside of their miracle tournament run, they haven’t done anything in recent years, including going into the Big West tournament this year which prompted the AD to want to make a change.
3. It took the AD letting Monson go in the middle of the season to inspire the team to play well. Prior to that decision, the Beach didn’t have much going for themselves. Good on them for using this as motivation and turning their season around, but if the AD would’ve waited until the end of the season, what would’ve the rest of their season look like?
4. While Monson does have strong ties to the Spokane valley, what does he actually know about Eastern and the Big Sky? Anything? I think there could be a learning curve.

Overall, I do think this is a good hire for Eastern and probably a best case scenario for roster building and for their budget concerns. Spokane is home for Monson, but his recent success has definitely been a mixed bag
Click to expand...
This was our new AD’s first true hire, I think he hit a home run. Understand the cons but this is better than anyone EWU could have hoped for. The other encouraging thing was the rumored list of candidates, Eastern had a pretty good pool from what I’ve read…
This was a good hire for the Big Sky
 
Monson is following his Dad's path - walking the sidelines in Missoula, Bozeman, Pocatello, Moscow, etc. This induces some nostalgia from when Idaho was REALLY good in the early 80's with that amazing squad that they had for awhile under Don Monson. Those were some legendary times in the BSC when Monson, Heathcoate, Neil McCarthy, Mike Montgomery, Sonny Allen, Bus Connor, and many others were doing some amazing things in the old BSC.
 
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